Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
214 lines (127 loc) · 8.58 KB

bundles.md

File metadata and controls

214 lines (127 loc) · 8.58 KB
Raw

Bundles

Contents

The Basics

Bundles are the heart of Laravel 3.0. They are a simple way to group code into convenient "bundles". A bundle can have it's own views, configuration, routes, migrations, tasks, and more. A bundle could be everything from a database ORM to a robust authentication system. Let your imagination run wild with what you can do with bundles.

Creating Bundles

Creating a bundle is a walk in the park. Just create a folder for the bundle within your bundles directory. For this example, let's create an "admin" bundle, which could house the administrator back-end to our application. Great, so we have our folder. Remember the start.php file application folder? You can have one of those for your bundle. It is run everytime the bundle is loaded. Let's create one:

Creating a bundle start.php file:

<?php

Autoloader::namespaces(array(
	'Admin' => Bundle::location('admin').'models',
));

Great! In this start file, we've told the auto-loader that classes that are namespaced to "Admin" should be loaded out of our bundle's models directory. You can do anything you want in your start file, but typically it is used for registering classes with the auto-loader. In fact, you aren't required to create a start file for your bundle.

Next, we'll look at how to register this bundle with our application!

Registering Bundles

OK, so we have our Admin bundle, but we need to register it with Laravel. Pop open your application/bundles.php file. This is where you register all bundles used by your application. Let's add ours:

Registering a simple bundle:

return array('admin'),

Great! By convention, Laravel will assume that the Admin bundle is located at the root level of the bundle directory, but we can specify another location if we wish:

Registering a bundle with a custom location:

return array(

	'admin' => array('location' => 'userscape/admin'),

);

Now Laravel will look for our bundle in bundles/userscape/admin.

Bundles & Class Loading

Typically, a bundle's start.php file only contains auto-loader registrations. So, you may want to just skip start.php and declare your bundle's mappings right in its registration array. Here's how:

Defining auto-loader mappings in a bundle registration:

return array(

	'admin' => array(
		'autoloads' => array(
			'map' => array(
				'Admin' => '(:bundle)/admin.php',
			),
			'namespaces' => array(
				'Admin' => '(:bundle)/lib',
			),
			'directories' => array(
				'(:bundle)/models',
			),
		),
	),

);

Notice that each of these options corresponds to a function on the Laravel auto-loader. In fact, the value of the option will automatically be passed to the corresponding function on the auto-loader.

You may have also noticed the (:bundle) place-holder. For convenience, this will automatically be replaced with the path to the bundle. It's a piece of cake.

Starting Bundles

So our bundle is created and registered, but how can we start using it? First, we need to start it. It's simple:

Starting a bundle:

Bundle::start('admin');

This tells Laravel to run the start.php file for the bundle, which will register its classes in the auto-loader. The start method will also load the routes.php file for the bundle if it is present.

Note: The bundle will only be started once. Subsequent calls to the start method will be ignored.

If you use a bundle throughout your application, you may want it to start on every request. If this is the case, you can configure the bundle to auto-start in your application/bundles.php file:

Configuration a bundle to auto-start:

return array(

	'admin' => array('auto' => true),

);

You do not always need to explicitly start a bundle. In fact, you can usually code as if the bundle was auto-started and Laravel will take care of the rest. For example, if you attempt to use a bundle views, configurations, languages, routes or filters, the bundle will automatically be started!

Each time a bundle is started, it fires an event. You can easily listen for the starting of bundles like so:

Listen for a bundle's start event:

Event::listen('laravel.started: admin', function()
{
	// The "admin" bundle has started...
});

It is also possible to "disable" a bundle so that it will never be started.

Disabling a bundle so it can't be started:

Bundle::disable('admin');

Routing To Bundles

Refer to the documentation on bundle routing and bundle controllers for more information on routing and bundles.

Using Bundles

As mentioned previously, bundles can have views, configuration, language files and more. Laravel uses a double-colon syntax for loading these items. So, let's look at some examples:

Loading a bundle view:

return View::make('bundle::view');

Loading a bundle configuration item:

return Config::item('bundle::file.option');

Loading a bundle language line:

return Lang::line('bundle::file.line');

Sometimes you may need to gather more "meta" information about a bundle, such as whether it exists, its location, or perhaps its entire configuration array. Here's how:

Determine whether a bundle exists:

Bundle::exists('admin');

Retrieving the installation location of a bundle:

$location = Bundle::location('admin');

Retrieving the configuration array for a bundle:

$config = Bundle::get('admin');

Retrieving the names of all installed bundles:

$names = Bundle::names();

Bundle Assets

If your bundle contains views, it is likely you have assets such as JavaScript and images that need to be available in the public directory of the application. No problem. Just create public folder within your bundle and place all of your assets in this folder.

Great! But, how do they get into the application's public folder. The Laravel "Artisan" command-line provides a simple command to copy all of your bundle's assets to the public directory. Here it is:

Publish bundle assets into the public directory:

php artisan bundle:publish

This command will create a folder for the bundle's assets within the application's public/bundles directory. For example, if your bundle is named "admin", a public/bundles/admin folder will be created, which will contain all of the files in your bundle's public folder.

For more information on conveniently getting the path to your bundle assets once they are in the public directory, refer to the documentation on asset management.

Installing Bundles

Of course, you may always install bundles manually; however, the "Artisan" CLI provides an awesome method of installing and upgrading your bundle. The framework uses simple Zip extraction to install the bundle. Here's how it works.

Installing a bundle via Artisan:

php artisan bundle:install eloquent

Great! Now that you're bundle is installed, you're ready to register it and publish its assets.

Need a list of available bundles? Check out the Laravel bundle directory

Upgrading Bundles

When you upgrade a bundle, Laravel will automatically remove the old bundle and install a fresh copy.

Upgrading a bundle via Artisan:

php artisan bundle:upgrade eloquent

Note: After upgrading the bundle, you may need to re-publish its assets.

Since the bundle is totally removed on an upgrade, you must be aware of any changes you have made to the bundle code before upgrading. You may need to change some configuration options in a bundle. Instead of modifying the bundle code directly, use the bundle start events to set them. Place something like this in your application/start.php file.

Listening for a bundle's start event:

Event::listen('laravel.started: admin', function()
{
	Config::set('admin::file.option', true);
});